Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 3:15 pm on 10 July 2024.
This question was prepared for me by a young person in Caerphilly who attends school and is in sixth form. She described how a member of her family has struggled adapting to secondary school due to social anxiety, and as a result started regularly refusing to go to school, which made her attendance drop below 50 per cent. The parent has regularly met and worked with the school and the local authority to try different approaches to encourage her child into school. Sometimes, this has helped in the short term, but overall, it hasn't. The parent has been threatened by the school with prosecution, despite doing all they can to try and improve the situation. Does the Cabinet Secretary therefore believe that there is more the Welsh Government could do to allow schools to provide more support for children and families struggling with mental health and attendance issues, particularly before it gets to the point of fines being imposed and parents finding themselves at the distressing point of risking prosecution?